Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Thank you very much to all of you who attended the "Critical Discussion and Analysis of the Community Benefits Agreement Process, Neighborhood Self-Determination and the One Hill Controversy" at the University of Pittsburgh.

Our discussion was riveting and I’m very pleased with the participation, the folks who came from the Hill (including One Hill members) and even from other neighborhoods, members of Pittsburgh United and the students, faculty and administrators who were in attendance. I was truly pleased by the amount and makeup of the audience, especially given our date changes and the many conflicting events occurring throughout the city.

Certainly, One Hill leadership and that of Pittsburgh United were missed on the panel, as it was never intended to be without these two organizations in formal representation; but many thanks to our panelists:

David Richardson, Center for Family Excellence, Hill District

Good Reverend Doctor James McLemore, Bethel AME Church, the oldest church in the Hill, displaced from the Lower Hill in the '50's

for adding such a great level of diversity in perspective and approach, with regard to social services, faith-based institutions, development agencies and, certainly, the role of the press. My work was to provide an historical and political analysis of how we arrived at this point in the City and in our neighborhood. We then all answered questions posed by our moderator and then opened it up to Q & A from the audience.

Special thanks, also, to Dr. Ralph Bangs and Dr. John Wallace, of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Race and Social Problems for providing the kind of statistical analysis of “the state of Black Pittsburgh” so desperately needed for the City and important to include on this panel.

We were all able to provide perspective and insight into the Hill District and the CBA process, within a free, open, safe and secure space, to the extent that we all learned something and are now even more committed to the goal of securing a CBA and ushering the Hill District community swiftly and powerfully into the 21st century.

While others were and are intent to believe that the discussion and analysis were meant to be a One Hill / Pittsburgh United bash fest, everyone proved otherwise and we remain firmly committed to the idea and implementation of the series. The Chair of our department was exceptionally pleased with the discussion and found it entirely necessary, as did everyone else.

We lost some of our panelists with our date change but we will sweep them up again.

In the future, One Hill and Pittsburgh United will be invited again, in their formal capacity and we hope they each take advantage of the opportunity to teach and to learn.

7 comments:

What reasons did they give for throwing you and the other uppity negroes (I'm black by the way) out of the group? Can they even do that? And two: how do you want the 350 million spent as opposed to the tonya payne faction? Is Khari and the SEIU their own faction? Three: Are you in direct contact with the alleged black guy who runs things and what is his position on this? Does he care?

The reason given for tossing us out of One Hill is because we violated our membership agreement by negotiating outside of One Hill. Unless one knows the history, the obvious problem with this is that the group supposedly negotiating outside of One Hill is the same group that made the space FOR One Hill and secured the agreement to have a CBA in the first place. Long story...

Second, the ministers stepped up and continued negotiations that occurred long before One Hill was created but all of them *and* the lay persons who may or may not have observed the meeting were kicked out.

Can they do that? Oh please. They've done so much stuff that is shoddy and unethical that I cannot even bother to ask that question anymore. Anything is possible and they prove that every week.

As for the 350 million, the Payne camp doesn't even think about that because the Pens don't want them to.

In general, it's not like it's $350 mil in cash, it's spurred development so the typical low income, affordable housing and mixed use space with master plan is the vision.

No, I don't think Khari and SEIU are their own faction. If so, I know nothing about it.

I am totally confused about the "alleged black guy who runs things". What do you mean? Please provide more details.

Are you talking about Carl Redwood, Chair of One Hill?

Khari Mosley, Campaign Coordinator for Pittsburgh UNITED?

or Don Barden, CEO of Majestic Star / PITG Gaming?

or Sala Udin, our former City Councilor who is supposedly the "quiet nexus" of our group? LOL.

I'm curious as to your perspective. How would it be helpful to me if I had a relationship with Don Barden?

For the record, I have met him once, his team twice---first in Harrisburg when I was protesting the Isle of Capri and then in the Hill District, when his team was the only one to show up to a Hill District Gaming Task Force meeting.

Well, you could ask Don whether he's serious about economic development. I guess that would be the main thing...as you know, just because a black person owns a big business it doesn't mean that they take much of an interest in the community. (See BET programming.) I mean, why isn't he attending these meetings? Aren't you curious? Does he have white lawyers and dem operatives standing between him and the process...? Hey, I'm curious...

Totally with you on the BET gig. Barden is probably serious about economic development but he won the casino license and has to focus on that first, yes? He has a ton of obstacles there, lawsuits and then needing to fix the design of the garage. It looks like he has his hands full, so why would he come to a community meeting with even more persons in an adversarial position and blaming him and the casino industry for all of the ills in the world?

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